copyright © 2016 cengage learning. all rights reserved. 1 copyright © 2016 cengage learning. all...

Copyright © 2016 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

1Copyright © 2016 Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.

Chapter Six:Public Opinion and Political Socialization


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1. Define public opinion, consensus opinion, and divided opinion, and discuss major sources of political socialization, including the family, schools, the media, and political events.

2. Identify the effects of various influences on voting behavior including education, income, religion, race/ethnicity, gender, and geography.

3. Describe the characteristics of a scientific opinion poll, and list some of the problems pollsters face in obtaining accurate results.

4. Consider the effect that public opinion may have on the political process.

Learning Outcomes


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• Consensus and Divided Opinion• Forming Public Opinion: Political

Socialization• The family• Education as a source of political socialization• Peers and peer group influence• Opinion leaders’ influence

Public Opinion and Political Socialization


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Public opinion can be strongly divided. Why is that so with health care reform legislation?

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Consensus Opinion

Question: Do you think that Russia’s actions in Ukraine are or are not a violation of international law?

Do you think Russia’s President Putin caredwhether the annexation of Crimea was a violation of international law? Why or why not?

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Divided Opinion

Question: Do you think it is likely or not likely that there will be a new cold war between the United States and Russia in the next few years?

Why would the United States be reluctant to become militarily involved in Ukraine?

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A Maryland voter and her daughter in 2012. Hurricane Sandy disrupted early voting in that state. What kinds of voters tend to turn out even in very bad weather?

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• The Media and Public Opinion• The popularity of the media• The impact of the new media

• Fairness Doctrine

• Political Events and Public Opinion• Historical events• The political mood

Public Opinion and Political Socialization


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Pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, speaks to a conference on AIDS in Washington, D.C.

Is Warren an opinion leader?

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Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg marches with his employees in San Francisco’s

Gay Pride Parade. How are leaders of the new

media different from leaders of the old?

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• Party Identification and Demographic Influences• Educational achievement• Economic status• Religious denomination• Religious commitment and beliefs• Race and ethnicity• The Hispanic vote• The gender gap• Geographic region

Political Preferences and Voting Behavior


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Some sections of the U.S. have high levels of poverty, such as in Owsley County, Kentucky, where this auto mechanic lives. How does family income

influence feelings about government?

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Arab American activists promote voter registration

in Dearborn, Michigan, a city with a substantial Arab American population.

What kinds of issues might sway the “Arab vote”?

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The Gender Gap in Presidential Elections

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• Election-Specific Factors• Perception of the candidates• Issue preferences

Political Preferences and Voting Behavior


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Women supporting Barack Obama demonstrate outside of a Mitt Romney campaign event in 2012.

What factors might create the “gender gap”?

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• The History of Opinion Polls• Sampling Techniques

• The principle of randomness• The statistical nature of polling• Sampling error

Measuring Public Opinion


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Nate Silver is an unabashed “numbers geek” who correctly

predicted most elections in 2012. His Fivethirtyeight blog has moved from the

New York Times to ESPN. In what ways do politics

resemble sports?

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• The Difficult of Obtaining Accurate Results• Weighting the sample• House effects• How accurate are the results?



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Gallup Poll Accuracy Record

Sources: The Gallup Poll Monthly, November 1992; Time, November 21, 1994; The Wall Street Journal, November 6, 1996; and authors’ updates.

This chart compares the percentage of the vote received by the winning presidential candidate with

Gallup’s final prediction. Is Gallup still the “gold standard” among poll takers? Why or why not?


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Barack Obama’s Predicted Margin of Victory of Mitt Romney in the 2012 Presidential Election

Sources: FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics blogs.

The eleven polls on this chart were

conducted immediately before the elections. Two polling firms had ties to a political party.

Why might Obama have done better than

many pollsters predicted?


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• Additional Problems with Polls• Poll questions• Unscientific and fraudulent polls• Push polls



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President Harry Truman holds up the front page of the Chicago Daily Tribune issue that predicted his defeat on the basis of a Gallup poll. Truman,

of course, defeated Dewey. The Gallup poll was completed more than a week before the election, so it missed a shift by undecided voters to Truman. Why would a newspaper today be unlikely to make such an

inaccurate prediction and put it on newsstands?

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• Technology and Opinion Polls• The advent of telephone polling• Telephone polling problems• The cell phone problem• Enter internet polling• How representative is the Internet?• “Nonpolls” on the internet



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College Republicans work the polls in Virginia. How might young Republicans view issues

differently from older ones?

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• Political Culture and Public Opinion• Political culture and support for our political

system• Political trust

Public Opinion and the Political Process


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Political Satisfaction TrendQuestion: In general, are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States at this time?

Satisfaction hit a minor peak of 33 percent on Election Day 2012, the highest number in several years before or since.

Why might satisfaction have been greater on that day?

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Confidence in Institutions TrendQuestion: I am going to read a list of institutions in American society. Please tell me how much confidence you, yourself, have in each one: a great deal, quite a lot, some, or very little?

Why might the Supreme Court and public schools be at least moderately popular?

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• Public Opinion about Government• Confidence in other institutions• The most important problems



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• Public Opinion and Policymaking• Setting limits on government action• The public versus the policymakers• The limits of polling



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• A Policy Example: Contraception Insurance• The controversy• The Supreme Court takes up the issue• Public opinion and the controversy



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The Door-to-Door Fight for Votes in Virginia

Click picture to view video

http://college.cengage.com/polisci/polisci_shared/courseware/media/playeradb.html?video=209157_737549_121105e_nov052012_01_votes_in_virginia


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1. How important is personal contact in gaining support for a candidate?

2. Do you feel your individual vote counts? Why or why not?

3. Who or what most influences your voting behavior? Do you vote like your family does?

Video Discussion Questions

http://college.cengage.com/polisci/polisci_shared/courseware/media/playeradb.html?video=209157_737549_121105e_nov052012_01_votes_in_virginia

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